The purpose of this blog is to serve as a quick reference to political and economic data presented primarily in graphical format, with tables and other charts where appropriate. Use the search box to quickly locate the data you are seeking. Go Dems!

Saturday, March 29, 2014

My greatest fear is that Ryan shares with the Republican Party a penchant for strategic racism — a willingness to stir widespread racial anxiety in pursuit of votes. This is not racism as hate, or as bias, but as the cold, calculating decision to exploit racist sentiments in society.

In 1963, Republican leaders fatefully decided to seek advantage in the rising backlash to the civil rights movement. After attending a meeting of the Republican National Committee, Robert Novak reported: “A good many, perhaps a majority of the party’s leadership, envision substantial political gold to be mined in the racial crisis by becoming in fact, though not in name, the White Man’s Party.”

Malice did not drive this; instead, it reflected a tactical decision to stoke racial fears. And this strategy has largely worked. After 1964, Republican presidential candidates have won a majority of the white vote in every election, often by staggering margins. Today, the centrality of race to the GOP is obvious: roughly 9 out 10 Republican supporters are white, as are 98 percent of its elected state officials.

Thursday, March 27, 2014

Waring was an architect of the legal path that led to the Brown v. Board decision handed down on May 17, 1954, through want has been called “the dissent that changed America.” Waring was the first federal judge directly to challenge the 1896 “separate but equal” doctrine that propped up segregation as an everyday practice in the South. He wrote June 21, 1951 in Briggs v. Elliott:

“Segregation in education can never produce equality and that it is an evil that must be eradicated. … I am of the opinion that all of the legal guideposts, expert testimony, common sense and reason point unerringly to the conclusion that the system of segregation in education adopted and practiced in the State of South Carolina must go and must go now. Segregation is per se inequality.”

The solid red state is shaping up as a key boost to Democratic hopes of retaining the Senate thanks to a GOP primary field both sides believe could produce a nominee too hobbled, too extreme, or too gaffe-prone to win in November.